Abstract

DELGADO, Diana; MEDINA, Iván Felipe  and  ROZO, Mónica Jimena. Assessment of the effects of habituation to matching-to-sample procedure stimulating conditions. Suma Psicol. [online]. 2013, vol.20, n.1, pp.15-29. ISSN 0121-4381.

Traditionally, research studies on the formation of equivalence classes in verbally able individuals are conducted using arbitrary stimuli and a matching-to-sample procedure. However, a higher-than-criterion performance in equivalence tests is not usually observed in all participants of these studies. These data are not often interpreted and the implied variability in the acquisition of derived relations in humans is seldom discussed. The purpose of this study is to examine whether habituation to the stimulating conditions of the experimental preparation may account - at least partially - for low performances observed in equivalence tests. Results of participants in a group exposed to a respondent matching-to-sample procedure were compared to those of a group exposed to a similar procedure with an added observation response requirement on some of the training trials. Visual inspection of the data shows that a higher number of participants in the second group obtained above-criterion performances. Some additional theoretical and procedural implications are discussed based on the analysis of participants' verbal reports.

Keywords : equivalence; matching-to-sample; attention; habituation; derived relations.

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